Home Care Quality Measures -
Percent of Patients Who Have Less Pain When Moving Around

---

This percentage addresses the ratio of patients who, after home care treatment, have less pain that affects their ability to perform daily activities like getting up, walking, dressing, or bathing. Higher percentages are better.

This percentage may include some patients who have been prescribed treatment for their pain, but who refuse pain medicines or choose to take less medicine. Some patients fear that they could become addicted to prescribed pain medication, or that it will make them groggy, so they may choose to live with a certain amount of pain so they can stay alert and feel safe.

Capturing data on measuring pain is always bit complex. Generally, a higher percentage on this measure is better, as home care workers should make sure their patients are not in pain. Pain may be a sign of a new or worsening health problem, and the cause of pain must be determined.

Why is this important?

It is critical that patients tell their home care staff about their pain and describe how they feel. Their home care agency should evaluate their pain, and information from the patient will assist the home care agency and the patient’s personal doctor to develop a treatment plan to address their pain.

The data used to compute the indicator percentage for the system overall and each individual facility was collected from July 2005 to June 2006.

The U.S. and state averages for this measure were provided by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).